A Russian-flagged cargo vessel operating within approximately 3 kilometres of the UK coastline near Minehead has been ordered to leave.
Over the last 24 hours, we’ve been monitoring a Russian vessel off the coast of Somerset. Cargo ship Sinegorsk entered the Bristol Channel around 24 hours ago after previously departing from Arkhangelsk, before manoeuvring close to the North Somerset coast. During the period, the vessel altered course multiple times and at points appeared to slow to near-stationary speed. The vessel has now departed.
Data we’ve been looking at showed the vessel remaining inside UK territorial waters for several hours before leaving the area. The data does not indicate that the ship attempted to enter a UK port or make use of port services during its time off the Somerset coast.
It’s also relevant to note that the vessel passed over data cables, locations shown below.
A UK Coastguard fixed-wing aircraft was also observed conducting activity offshore during the same period, based on publicly available flight tracking information. In response to enquiries from UK Defence Journal, the Department for Transport said the vessel had entered UK waters in order to undertake essential safety repairs. A spokesperson told me:
“We issued a clear warning as a first step to SINEGORSK vessel to leave UK waters after it entered to undertake essential safety repairs. This directive has been complied with, and the vessel is leaving UK waters.”
Under UK sanctions introduced following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Russian-flagged vessels are prohibited from entering UK ports. The measures do not, however, amount to a blanket exclusion from territorial waters, meaning vessels may still transit UK seas provided they comply with maritime law and any directions issued by authorities. It is not illegal for Russian-flagged vessels to enter UK waters, and vessels may do so on safety grounds in order to complete repairs. The vessel is, as far as we can tell, not assessed to be part of the Russian shadow fleet.
An MOD spokesperson said:
“Deterring, disrupting and degrading the Russian shadow fleet is a priority for this government. Alongside our allies, we are stepping up our response to shadow vessels. We are acutely aware of the threat posed by Russia, which includes attempts to map undersea cables, networks, and pipelines belonging to both the UK and our allies, and we are tackling these threats head on. The Royal Navy constantly monitors our seas, including safeguarding critical infrastructure such as underwater cables and offshore structures.”
While there is no immediate evidence that the vessel observed off the Somerset coast was engaged in any such activity, authorities maintain routine maritime domain awareness around the coastline, particularly in areas associated with busy shipping routes and critical national infrastructure.
The government has previously said it has imposed sanctions on more than 500 Russia-linked shadow fleet oil tankers, as well as 16 liquefied natural gas carriers.
The Bristol Channel is one of the UK’s busiest and most complex maritime environments, with high commercial traffic density and some of the strongest tidal flows in the world.
Reporting on maritime activity of this nature requires detailed cross-checking of tracking data, timelines and official responses. If this incident is referenced or reported elsewhere based on our report, UK Defence Journal would appreciate attribution as the original source.
Board it and bring it in to port. Stop pussyfooting.
Only the French and Americans believe in that.
I bet we’re having liason chats about arranging meetings to discuss options!!!
How did it get there? Presumably it came through the English Channel or around Ireland. In either case pretending to make repairs off Minehead seems ridiculous. Isn’t it possible to track Russian craft and if they go places they shouldn’t, be ready as soon as they cross the territorial limit, sending a helicopter or a Border Force boat to warn them off? Preparing as soon as it rounded the Scilly isles. How do you define moving towards the Bristol Channel from the English Channel as innocent passage, given they are banned from English ports? Passage to where? And isn’t the Channel itself inland waters with no right of innocent passage? It’s not just territorial waters and you are supposed to ask permission to enter.
The JMSCC at Portsdown is there for exactly this sort of thing.
Multi agency, from Coast Guard to Border force to the RN and MoD, it monitors all waters around the UK in conjunction with NATO and Northwood, who produce the RMP, Recognised Maritime Picture.
So yes the vessel should have been logged long, long before.
The RN Duty Watch officers there have a direct line to ComOps at Northwood, if they wanted the vessel stopped it would have been.
So points to either it was deemed innocent, somehow missed, which I find hard to believe, or if it was up to no good a total balls up.
For interest, those two undersea cables running under the area of concern to those two eastern spots on the map include PTAT1, making landfall at Brean CLS, and Hibernia Express, landfall at another CLS in the Brean area.
Just south, Hightown CLS, this was once classed as “critical to the security of the US” carrying a C&W cable.
Lol, I spent the Tuesday at Burham-on Sea (Americans call it “BURN HAM On SEA” Y’all) Not much there this time of year, just mud but a rather good Curry House the “Chandri” ( I had a Curry from the Chandri in Storm Chandra !!! ) Extra hot Vindaloo was good but not that hot.
I think the Russians are following me !
They won’t eat in the Chandri as they don’t like spicy food. So stay there untIl the coast is clear!
Ha ha, The Chandri was a little bit out of range, I only saw the ship from Minehead the next day, which Is an hour or so to the west.
You fool no one, clearly no coincidence you were in the vicinity, you are only half wit after all, the other half is clearly Russian intelligence asset. You fooled us for a while true but the game is up, you have been spotted checking out spires in Salisbury.
TVR? Hayabusa? No Russian would associate with these names, but his wife encourages RV trips that strangley coincide…???
Ahh but I lied, It’s a Lada and a CZ and I drive a T72 !!!! 😁
You would go out of your mind driving a Lada…well further out of your mind…unless its been modidfied to 350hp or more?
Hinkley Point C is just to the east and an outpost of GCHQ not far to the west.
A pretty big outpost at that.
Halfwit was next to it a few weeks ago.
I know it well. Was Halfwhit window shopping?
Escaping the wind, rain, and the Mrs I think?
Yup, Hincley A B and C, all In one massive lump. It’s by far the brightest place on the coast (Wales Included) at night. Also you have Appledore, Chivenor, Morwenstow and a few other places along that coast.
Don’t forget the strategic railway line at Minehead and the dinosaurs in Combe Martin. Frightening!!
Should have arrested it – suspicion of spying.
In the weeks or months lead up to any conflict they would be laying mines.
Just shows how easy airports could be shut down with some rogue drone flying, or nuclear station cooling vents damaged forcing a shutdown.
How far is that site to LPG storage and importation sites?
How easy mission kills could be made on mine hunting and other assets with FPV drones.
Considering how many OCGs there are opening freely in the country of foreign origin , just how many could be bought or blackmailed to perform hostile action, especially with Wagner ops in Africa putting the squeeze on family members.
What resilience have we in capacity? Do we have vessels to quickly fix and replace cables?
Out of curiousity what would you expect the Russians to do if a British cargo vessel did the same thing in their waters?
Centurion, I’d expect them to stop, board and inspect. It’s inside territorial waters, they have that right. I’d then expect the Russians to make-up some issues with the documentation, force the vessel into port, steal the contents and ‘try’ the Captain in a kangaroo court.
I don’t think a British cargo vessel would get within 300 miles of somewhere like Archangel if it didn’t have an agreed destination. Do you? I think the vessel would be turned away, or if far enough inland, boardered and “helped”. We already know what happened to a destroyer getting too close to Crimea in peacetime, don’t we? They fired warning shots and told the destroyer to leave the area of the “exercise”.
So we could of boarded and inspected but chose to give a clear warning and they complied. Pretty much what I thought, thanks!
I wonder when we actually noticed it. Very concerning I would say, the whole process even if it’s not checking out cables will be to test how easy it would be to get into such a threatening location. No point boasting about helping the French if we leave the back door open.
Should have been bordered with assistance offered to help them on their way.
Alternatively, just arrest the vessel and impound it on suspicion of spying with the crew remanded in custody – does Dartmoor prison still exist, I heard the Napoleonic French led a life of luxury up there; Russia should be put in down that that they are unwelcome and to stay out of UK waters.
Dartmoor prison is shut due to unsafe radon levels
Oh, the Russians like playing around with radioactive substances in the UK, perfect place to incarcerate them.
Yeah,when you put it like that it would be!
A dozen sea calves cross the Atlantic out of there.
Absurd situation to even get that far. 3km is well within territorial waters, you don’t need any reason at all to do a boarding and inspection.
Have we really become that stupid that we allow enemy shipping to reccy or plant a device on our most critical infrastructure (underwater cables) and our only response is give the captain a good talking too!!!.
YES!!!
How Coincidental !
I was looking at this ship from Minehead (Butlins rear entrance !) yesterday, did a Marine Track and noticed It was Russian. It had a full deck of blue containers on the deck. I saw no UK forces or boats but watched It stert up (black smoke) and trundle off down the coast.
PS, don’t bother parking up for the night there as the entire Towns compliment of Fuckwits gathered to show off their driving prowess and ability to hit the Rev Limiter over and over again for 4 hours.
Left early and now heading south !
Halfwit we rely on you to protect butlins minehead.
Don’t worry comrade I stood my ground, weapon in hand !
Our raving raving? Reporting commentator out on the scene.
😆
Yup, And I didn’t even know It was on here untill earlier !
It’s always good to get out and about despite all the Carnage on our roads ! Dungeness was a big no no so I headed West and did a coastal tour down from Bristol (brizle) .
You don’t seem to be home much!
I’ll be in a village near Bristol on Saturday.
Ha ha, yes I’m half way to a life on the road, the wife has to do care stuff so I get to “bugger off and leave her alone” We have a plan to go full Vanlife but the hole in the patio is taking a long time to dig !
I don’t want to know what you intend to put in it, but if it’s most of the current Cabinet go ahead.
If you’re heading south you can veer south west and go back to the Cove, you might be able to follow the Russkies.
Why was it allowed so close inshore?
Why not a SINEX?
SINKEX
Why ?
Because It was all alone, nothing else near It all the time i watched It.
This one, or the next one, could be doing anything, so need to stop the possibility now. Drone swarm mother ship, releasing E-coli into the prevailing winds…anything. Ban all Russian ships and aircraft from UK Economic Area now, before it is too late.
As it was poddering around over national infrastructure without any real reason other than mechanical issues they probably should have boarded and undertaken a safety compliance check..
Because I assure you using any part of the Bristol Channel/North Somerset coast as a safe haven if you have propulsion issues is utter BS.. it’s go some of the worst tidal races and tidal velocities anywhere on the planet, it’s also an inescapable lee shore if you lose propulsion.. with most of it being iron bound.. if you lose you mast or lose propulsion there you have lost your boat full stop.. call the coast guard and life boat to rescue you..
If it really had machine room issues it would have been heading away from that shore as fast as its limping engines would allow.
It was an 8 metre Tide difference on Wednesday, with a South Easterly Wind,the ship was doing circles on the spot but It was unclear if still under power, although I did see a load of black smoke shortly before she started to move west. I saw no other ships/boats around her at any time but I have read that a Wildcat was sent but I didn’t hear or see it.
The surprise was that when I looked at Marine Tracker, It came up as Russian flagged and I thought It was more than a bit odd !
Just pussy footing around as usual while Starmer breaks bread with his new Besty Xi, public enemy number one continues to do what he likes around our coast.
Seems like a massive failure of surveillance and protection of the UKs territorial waters. The vessel should have been boarded. Inspected, it’s crews arrested and the ship impounded.
That’s what the Russians would have done to a British flagged vessel.
Yes, yes, yes, we will dispatch a frigate straight away… oh wait.
Sorry Mr Bell, we are truly foxtroted at the moment and the Scum can do what they want – they must be laughing and haven’t even broken out the vodka, yet.
THis comes across as a deliberate test of how we react. One report claimed it took 14 hours to get a Wildkat to go out to the ship.
We come across as slow and what vessel could have gone out tpo her and insisted we take he in? This is why we need more patrol vesels as a drone vessel can’t board a potentially hostile vessel.
I say bring back the RN Coastal Forces with high speed MGBs based in pairs around the UK. Good for local recruitment efforts too. Would not cost much either.
Do I understand correctly that we allow a foreign vessel, one from an enemy, to go back and forth over data cables in full knowledge that similar ships have done similar things elsewhere deliberately dragging anchors to destroy cables? We should have torpedod the damned ship
I’m hoping that we were at least watching the ship with something in the sky or on the water… But honestly, I don’t trust our Govt to be on the ball that much.
Surprised we didn’t board it, it’s not often you’re ordered to haul up your anchor with a Wildcat and then ordered to leave. Hell, if it wasn’t delivering anything to the ports, I’d still board it out of caution. Don’t need to seize it, just pilot it away from the area.